4 replies to this topic

[BrittonLS]

My test tubes seem to be trying out pretty fast. I'm not sure if it's ahead of schedule or not, but it seems after about a month they're completely dry. They're the 13x100mm tubes. It seems like way to fast for the water to be slurped up by all the ants, I suppose it's evaporating. Perhaps I'm not stuffing the cotton in tight enough or should be using more cotton to seal the water with?

[Crystals]

How thick of a cotton plug are you using to hold the water back?  And how much cotton in the entrance?

 

Hard to slow down evaporation from the wet cotton without limiting water available to your ants.

I would take a closer look at the entrance cotton, as that is the final barrier.

 

Even placing the test tube in a container with damp paper towel will help.

[BrittonLS]

Maybe I just need a better way to transfer colonies into new test tubes. I use either 1/3 or 1/2 of a "triple" size cotton ball. But I may have used smaller pieces in these.

[dspdrew]

Are these tubes made out of Polypropylene or Polystyrene?

[BrittonLS]

Polystyrene. And a few glass ones.

It's just tough getting a queen with just a couple workers to move and I'm worried about just dumping them over into a new tube.

Perhaps a tighter cotton on the lid makes sense as well, I've been skimping on the cotton recently lol.